San Francisco – Page 7

The River Cats come into Tuesday’s home opener against the El Paso Chihuahuas with a record of 1-2 from their opening series in Salt Lake. Opening Day was scheduled for Friday, March 31, but a blanket of snow on the Smith’s Ballpark field postponed the game until Saturday which turned into a midday doubleheader. Due to the weather, Opening Day now fell on the shoulders of Tristen Beck in game one. The final score was 2-0 with both runs being charged to Beck who gave up a solo homerun to Chad Wallach in the third, and got into a bases loaded jam in the fourth where reliever Ryan Walker did just that, and walked in a run before retiring the inning.

The River Cats would pick their first win of 2023 as they split the season opening doubleheader by defeating the Bees by a score of 7-4. The River Cats used Mauricio Llovera as an opener for one inning before handing the ball over to Sammy Long who would pick up the win. The River Cats offense was lead by Ricardo Genoves and Michael Gigliotti who combined for five RBI on the night. Cole Waites would bring his deceptive fastball in to close out the game and earn his first save. The River Cats closer has topped out at 100.6 in his career but normally sits around 95-98 which appears much faster watching him through from behind the plate as he bores into right-handed batters.

The River Cats would close out Opening Day weekend with yet another loss to the Bees. The Bees took advantage of 14 walks issued by River Cats pitching on their way to reaching base 21 times in the game and defeating the River Cats 8-3 after an outstanding performance by pitcher who shutout the River Cats through five innings and striking out six.

Sacramento’s home opener on April 4th, brings the Triple-A debut of San Francisco Giants’ #1, and MLB’s #18, prospect Kyle Harrison who averaged 14.8 strikeouts per nine innings in 2022 is getting the ball for the River Cats as they face the El Paso Chihuahuas, Triple-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres, and the reigning Pacific Coast League East Division Champions. Look for former Red Sox 2016 first-round draft pick Jay Groome to take the mound for the Chihuahuas during this six game series, but the bigger story is that Fernando Tatis Jr is expected to play for the Chihuahuas this series. Tatis who is coming off an 80-game suspension for testing positive for a banned substance last August, is eligible to return to the Padres on April 20th. A little fun fact about Tatis is that when he suits up for the Chihuahuas for the first time, it will also mark the first time he will play at the Triple-A level having jumped from Double-A to the Majors in 2019.

The 2023 Minor League Baseball season is just a few days old, and before the River Cats started their three-day series in Salt Lake City against the Bees I had a chance to get to know some of the players on this year’s team.

One of the more interesting players to watch this year will be Ronald Guzman who is starting 2023 on the injured list after suffering a pronator strain in a Spring Training game against the A’s. Guzman, the 6’4” former Texas Rangers slugger has now converted into a relief pitcher whose fastball reaches the mid-90s will be playing with the River Cats when he returns in 6-8 weeks to the field of play in 6-8 weeks. I am curious to see if the Giants organization plans to utilize his bat still or if he will put 100% of his focus into pitching.

The San Francisco Giants have also signed two time Major League All Star Gary Sanchez to a Minor League deal and have assigned him to the River Cats. Sanchez will first report to the Giants Spring Training facility in Scottsdale, Arizona for an undisclosed amount of time before joining Sacramento which should be fairly soon as his contract allows Sanchez to opt out if he isn’t on the Major League roster by May 1st. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out as the Giants options behind the plate do not appear to be making any lasting impressions on the front office.

The fans will have many familiar faces returning in 2023 as Heliot Ramos, Casey Schmitt, Cole Waites, Tristan Beck, and Isan Diaz, just to name a few, will once again wear the River Cats jersey. This team is a good mix of guys who are already familiar with each other and will be spending another season together, but while they are a team, they’re still their own individual selves.

Kyle Harrison spent time in the Dominican Republic at one of the baseball academies where the culture shock hit hard. Kyle visited an orphanage and had his eyes open to how people live there in the DR, and he also saw the difficulties that Dominican baseball players face as they try to climb up the organization ladder. While he thought it was a cool experience to have, he discussed having to live eight to a room in bunkbeds at the baseball academy which gave him the appreciation for what players in the United States have.

Will Wilson had a busy off season by moving from North Carolina to Florida where you can go to the beach without freezing during the off season. Will also just started to golf, and admitted has a way to go having only broken 90 once thus far.

Giants fourth ranked prospect Casey Schmitt, the recent winner of the Barney Nugent Award given annually to the player who best exemplifies the spirit of the San Francisco Giants is an avid UFC fan who likes to bring the joy of wrestling into the clubhouse. I was surprised that all hell didn’t break loose during this interview as Schmitt and Wilson went back and forth about the the number of pins Schmitt has suffered at the hands of Wilson, who claims four while Schmitt argues that they are “unconfirmed”; River Cats manager Dave Brundage was unavailable for comment on the matter, but as you can tell by this picture, it’s pretty obvious to see who Daddy is.

The teams’ musical tastes was far less diverse than expected but a few stood out such as Kyle Harrison and his love for rap artist Gunna who I had to look up, but now I wish I could have asked Kyle what his thoughts were on Gunna cutting a deal on a case and snitching on YSL? Considering Harrison has spent time in the DR he should talk to Heliot Ramos about his musical choice Eladio Carrion a Puerto Rican rapper and reggaeton singer.

Pitcher Ryan Walker an accomplished guitarist who has played since he was eight years old, and can shred along to the best rock solos, or slow it down and fingerpick his way through a ballad confessed to strumming his guitar to Lainey Wilson’s “Heart Like a Truck” while sipping on whiskey these days.

The one thing that many of the players had in common was their love for pop country singer Morgan Wallen. In case you don’t know, Wallen is the hottest thing since sliced butter on the country charts, but he’s also the guy who casually dropped the “hard R” in 2021 when Wallen was 28 years old. The use of the word was justified by fans as Wallen trying to be a tough guy, and after some sensitivity training Wallen apologized and saw the error in his ways, but was he contrite? Money and a number one hit song will erase a lot of sins, but there is no doubt in my mind how Wallen truly feels because he showed us, and the fear of being “cancelled” is a powerful thing, and that power is where the true danger really lies. Cancel culture doesn’t resolve anything, but just makes it worse by driving the ignorance and hate underground, while the resentment is buried and grows deeper within. Let a person show their true colors, and accept them for who they are, the good and the bad, but own the reflection of yourself as well. Anyway, anyone who listens to Morgan’s music knows he’s not much of a tough guy anyway.

The 2022 Oklahoma City Dodgers are a vibe.

They are the most exciting team I’ve seen in a while with an energy that makes it easy to understand their record coming into this series in Sacramento. From the nonchalant too cool for school attitude of Omar Estevez, the slick laid back demeanor of Andre Jackson, the swagger of Miguel Vargas, or the cool professional leadership of veteran Kevin Pillar, it creates an energy in the dugout that is making baseball fun for this team and exciting for their fans.

Eddy Alvarez, shortstop for the OKC Dodgers had this to say about what he feels creates the ball club’s energy,

“I think the roles that a lot of us have, [as] a lot of us are…veterans now, [with] a lot of big-league experience in our clubhouse, and we’ve taken the roll as it comes. The big-league team is obviously a video game kind of lineup, we understand that. I think the Dodgers on their end have done an unbelievable job in just getting and meshing a great group of guys together; if you can tell what its like as an outsider, it only gets better once we’re in the clubhouse”.

The last time the OKC Dodgers played in Sacramento was in 2018 with a team that featured the likes of Alex Verdugo, Tim Locastro, and Donovan Solano. This year the Dodgers roll in with an 8-4 record and atop the Pacific Coast League East. The River Cats, at 7-5, are in a three-way tie for second in the West.

Game 1 featured a pitching matchup between Sean Hjelle of the River Cats, and Andre Jackson for OKC. While the River Cats would lose by a score of 10-4, which included a six run eighth, the fireworks started early on when Dodgers’ second baseman Eddy Alvarez knocked in a run in the first, and then blasted a monster solo homerun in the third.

After rounding the bases and giving high fives to his teammates lined up across the front of the dugout, OKC Dodgers pitching coach Dave Borkowski said, “He does it all”, and that is no exaggeration, as Eddy indeed, does it all.

Eddy Alvarez is not your typical professional baseball player. A native of Miami, Florida, Eddy was born to Cuban immigrant parents, and while baseball was in his blood, he fell in love with another sport, inline speed skating. Eddy learned that to compete on the international level he needed to be skating on ice. That decision, determination and hard work led to Eddy being selected for the 2014 U.S. Olympic Short Track Speed Skating team which earned him a Silver Medal in Sochi.

I mentioned earlier that baseball was in Eddy’s blood, and that was manifested in his brother Nick, thirteen years his senior, who spent seven years in the Dodgers’ organization making it to Triple-A. Nick was a power hitter, and unbeknownst to me until recently that the two were brothers, I actually followed Nick’s career for a time. I live and write about baseball in San Francisco Giants and Oakland A’s country, but on the inside, I bleed Dodger blue through my Red Sox. After the 2014 Olympics, Eddy decided to hang up his skates for cleats due to the punishment his body was taking and the surgeries he needed to maintain at just 24 years of age.

Signed as an undrafted free agent, for nothing more than a chance by the White Sox, Eddy toiled in the Minor Leagues for five years before being traded to his hometown Miami Marlins in 2019. Eddy made his Major League debut on August 5, 2020 for the Marlins and would go on to get his first Major League hit off Jacob deGrom a few days later. Eddy credits his brother Nick in helping him transition to baseball.

“Nick’s career was kind of a steppingstone for me. He passed a bunch of information down to me when I made the decision to transition to baseball. He was the first one that I went to, to ask for help. Now he has three kids, two boys that are heavy in the baseball world. He has his own baseball academy…his own training facility that he runs the academy through; 25,000 square feet and that place is booming. He’s doing good, he’s doing really well, and the kids are doing extremely well, and we know he’s a basher right? He hit some far home runs that probably haven’t landed yet but he’s an unbelievable dad now, and it’s incredible to watch”.

In May of 2021, Eddy was named to the roster of the 2020/21 United States National Baseball team at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, and would once again wear the Red, White, and Blue on the international stage. Eddy’s experience in Tokyo was much different than Sochi.

“It was a lot different, the 2020 Olympics, compared to the 2014 with everything being shut down with Covid, and no crowds in the stands. The 2014 experience was my first taste of accomplishment, something that my whole life I sacrificed for, but either way, I was so honored to be named one of the flag bearers, next to Sue Bird, and to be able to walk out the Flag, knowing that it’s a symbol of liberty and freedom. It’s something that my family came over to the United States in search of, so I waved that Flag proudly for them”.

Team USA Baseball would fall to Japan in the Gold Medal game, which earned USA Baseball, and Eddy Alvarez the Silver Medal. This would be Eddy’s second Olympic Medal, in a different sport, making him one of six athletes, and only the third American, to have medaled in both the Winter and Summer Olympics. He is also the first Winter Olympian, and first non-baseball Olympian to have played Major League Baseball since the great Jim Thorpe in 1913, after getting Gold in 1912.

Eddy isn’t the only Olympian on the OKC Dodgers roster; he is joined by Team Israel infielder, and U.C. Davis alum, Ty Kelly. One thing I was dying to find out though was about the beds in Tokyo. All over social media last summer, athletes from around the world shared videos of the beds as they were tried, tested, and sometimes destroyed for views. The one thing that none of them ever mentioned, was how comfortable they were, so having the opportunity, I asked Eddy and with a laugh he said,

“They weren’t bad; they were a little stiff, the cushions were a little hard, but I slept really good. Then again, it was like sleeping on an arts and crafts model of a bed frame, but it was perfectly fine. [They were] really easy to move, and really easy to clean under”.

Its hard not to root for Eddy and wish the best for him. Eddy is also known for his backflips, and one of his goals is to bring the backflip back to the game of baseball a la Ozzie Smith, which he says he’s saving for when he’s back in the Major Leagues. So, a tip of the hat, and a raise of the glass to Eddy’s success in making it back to the Majors, so that we can see that flip.

The six-game series would end with a split between the teams but was much more meaningful for Giants and River Cats fans as the Dodgers were knocked out of first place in the East, and the River Cats would take sole possession of first place in the West.

Key highlight of the series included a Game 4 pitching matchup between Michael Plassmeyer for the River Cats and Ryan Pepiot who is the Dodgers’ #2 pitching prospect. The Dodgers would beat the River Cats by a score of 1-0 with the Dodgers lone run coming in the first off a double by Andy Burns that scored Miguel Vargas. From then on out it, it was lights out. Plassmeyer, and reliever Wei-Chieh Huang combined for 15 strikeouts in the loss. While Pepiot struck out eight in five innings of work.

The tables were turned in Game 5 when the River Cats exploded for 12 runs against the Dodgers. Heliot Ramos went oppo-taco, newly assigned Luke Williams continued his hot streak by going 3-4, and LaMonte Wade Jr started his rehab assignment, but the story of the night was Austin Dean. Dean went 3-5 with two runs score, and four RBI, as he fell a double short of the cycle. Things got so bad that infielder Ty Kelly came in to pitch just to save the bullpens arms. Kelly was really zipping them in there as he even touched the low 80’s on his fastball.

The River Cats are off to Albuquerque next for a series against the Isotopes, the Triple-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. If you’d also like to know more about Eddy Alvarez, and in his own words, check out Episode 8 of the podcast Sax in the Morning, hosted by five-time Major League All-Star, and 1982 National League Rookie of the Year, Steve Sax. Sax in the Morning can be found wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Tag: San Francisco

Now Batting…Morgan Wallen?

He Does It All!